The concept of auxiliary processing and auxiliary mechanisms that provide some auxiliary computing functionality to a main (host) computer system are generally described in a number of United States patent applications assigned to the assignee of the present invention, including Ser. Nos. 10/429,930 and 10/429,932. In general, many of these auxiliary computing concepts are embodied in various types of auxiliary displays, sometimes comprising a small display device embedded in a personal computer form factor, but also embodied in many other devices such as mobile phones, remote control devices, and so forth. Auxiliary displays can show independent data, e.g., related to another purpose such as mobile phone data, or show-computer-related data, such as email and calendar appointments of a host personal computer, even when the host computer system (e.g., a personal computer) is off or in some other reduced-power state.
To allow a user to interact with/navigate the content displayed on an auxiliary display device, some set of one or more actuators is required. Consideration needs to be given as to how a user will interact with the actuator set, what should occur when the user does, and what the display is currently rendering. For example, if interacting with an auxiliary display embedded in a laptop computer, the actuators generally need to be positioned somewhere proximate the auxiliary display so that users can intuitively use them, including when the laptop lid is closed.